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Jim Benning is expected to conduct a second pre-draft interview with Swedish centre Elias Pettersson.

Indifferent play, injuries may force GM's hand

BROOKLYN , N.Y — At one point on this Reality Tour, a sobering summation came from Jim Benning.

His top pairing of Chris Tanev and Alex Edler were injured and with the club committing to a better defensive structure to stay in games, transitioning pucks out of their end had become as hard as scoring at the other.

“It’s hard to be competitive,” admitted the Vancouver Canucks general manager, who took some solace when Edler participated in the game-day skate Monday.

However, for a struggling NHL team ranked last in every conceivable offensive category — goals, even-strength goals and the power play — and taking an eight-game losing streak into a matchup with the the New York Islanders, there is an increasing public clamour for change.

Something. Anything.

“We’re in a transition period and that’s why I’m looking at different things,” said Benning. “If it makes sense, we’ll look at it, but I’m not moving our Grade-A prospects.”

Losing Jannik Hansen to a shoulder injury Saturday on a hit from Morgan Rielly was bad enough. The Canucks were still awaiting a goal from Loui Eriksson and Sven Baertschi after a dozen games — and more than just the one overtime goal from Brandon Sutter — and it’s going to be tough to sell better defensive structure to a Vancouver hockey populace looking for some level of entertainment.

Benning has been trying to find offensive support for Baertschi since the offseason, the same manner in which he sought and then thought Sutter would better insulate Bo Horvat.

Benning will tell you he works the phones every day and if there’s anything that can help the team trade-wise — and makes sense — he’ll do it. The problem: He doesn’t want to part with prospects such as Thatcher Demko, Brock Boeser and Olli Juolevi. He doesn’t want to surrender high draft picks. And the core players teams call about — especially Tanev — are non-starters.

Chris Tanev is among a core of young players Canucks GM Jim Benning won’t part with in a trade to try to find more offence.Harry How /
Getty Images files

The Adam Larsson swap for Taylor Hall addressed respective needs for the Edmonton Oilers and New Jersey Devils. Would Benning consider a bold move and eventually part with a core guy?

“Not at this time,” he said. “We’ve rebuilt our defence over the course of the last two years and we have some depth. Tanev is a big part of our group and we’re not looking to move him. Chris is still young (26) and one of our better defencemen and you saw the other night (Saturday) when Tanev and Edler didn’t play.

“It all starts with your D-men and getting out of your own zone fast and getting through the neutral zone. We miss Chris when he’s not playing.”

Tanev is also a financial fit at a $4.45-million-US cap hit for this and three more seasons. And his modified no-trade clause doesn’t kick in until 2017-18.

Tanev has returned to Vancouver for further evaluation on a foot injury. He got tied up with Anze Kopitar on Oct. 22 in Los Angeles and played through pain the next night in Anaheim. But when run into the end boards by hulking forward Nick Ritchie, it only aggravated a foot injury.

Tanev wore a walking boot, missed three games and returned Wednesday in Montreal.

The mood of management is often mirrored by the vibe in the room. The Canucks had been blanked in four of their six previous games before facing the Islanders and on too many nights, it looks like they may never score.

Better structure through the defensive zone is also taxing. It means tighter gaps, no cheating and not blowing the zone early. And when you cough up the first goal in 11 of the first 12 games and start chasing the game, it becomes exhausting — and creating something in transition is harder.

And if they can’t score, where’s the help?

“There’s no talk of that in the room,” stressed winger Daniel Sedin. “We believe we can score and we have those guys on our team. It’s a matter of putting that first one in the net and things will get easier.

“And it’s a different feeling from last year. We scored a few goals but the system was back-and-forth and we gave up 48 shots here (Brooklyn) last year.

“We’ve been playing real well defensively and we’ve got to believe it’s going to get the job done. We’ll take a 1-0 win and a 2-1 win right now, and we can move on.”

The Canucks are also trying to move on from the Nazem Kadri hit on Daniel Sedin on Saturday that didn’t result in a suspension. It does have veterans and younger players wondering about how contact is evaluated by on-ice officials and the league’s department of player safety.

Jake Virtanen, 20, received an interference major and a game misconduct and then a two-game suspension last March for what looked like a shoulder-to-shoulder, neutral-zone hit on then-San Jose Sharks defenceman Roman Polak. It was deemed late and predatory.

The same could be said of Kadri’s hit, but he escaped suspension.

“That kind of made me think a bit,” said Virtanen. “My hit on Polak was shoulder on shoulder — but it was .03 seconds late. And it wasn’t a hit to the head or anything like that. And Polak came back in the game.”

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